A look at the world from a sometimes sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek, decidedly American male perspective. Lately, this blog has been mostly about gender issues, dating, marriage, divorce, sex, and parenting via analyzing talk radio, advice columns, news stories, religion, and pop culture in general. I often challenge common platitudes, arguments. and subcultural elements perpetuated by fellow Evangelicals, social conservatives. Read at your own risk.

Thursday, December 28, 2017

Another calendar year is winding down to a close. Have you made
resolutions for 2018? Resolutions can be made at any time. You don't
need to wait for an arbitrary calendar date. I read somewhere that if
you can keep a new habit for 21 days, you're likely to keep it going.
It can also be helpful to make incremental changes. For example, if you
want to walk more, don't think you need to start walking a certain long
distance every day. Start with something and then add to it a little at a time.

But this entry is not about resolutions.

It is simply taking a moment to think about the year ending and think about the year ahead.

New
Years Eve and New Years Day have become popular proposal days, and
there are people who pick December 31 as their day to get married.
Guys, DO NOT fall into that trap!

As for me, I have kept active on Twitter
and I plan to keep active on this blog, because I find it therapeutic
and if I can help just one man have a better life, and to be better, than it will be worth it (in addition to how it helps me).

There
were some big things that happened this year. My wife's sibling and
in-law, who'd been living with us rent-free for almost two years, were
kicked out by my wife because my wife didn't think they were helping out
enough and didn't like their attitudes. We had to hospitalize one of our kids
in a psych ward (they were only there temporarily, but long enough) and
we're still dealing with finding the best therapy. There was at least
one other big change on which I might elaborate later.

I'm not
planning big changes for 2018. I plan to keep working and I plan to keep
trying to keep my wife from going off the rails again and keep tending
to my kids. Save for a concert I have tickets to already, I have nothing
planned for me that will be fun. I'll be happy if life doesn't get much worse.

A few notes about media from this past year. Hugh Hefner died,
as I predicted he would (two other people I predicted would die in 2017
haven't - yet). Some people tried to tie Hefner in to all of the men
doing everything from sending unsolicited crotch shots
to sexual harassment to rape in the entertainment industry. At the
other end of the spectrum, the head of a Protestant ministry, the
Christian Research Institute, left Protestantism for Eastern Orthodoxy
while staying put at the ministry, which I consider to be a bad move on
his part (not necessarily joining the EOC, but keeping his position in a
Protestant ministry). Then there was Tom Leykis continuing to pass
along his astute observations on the unfolding demise of the corporate
terrestrial radio industry while threatening to end his own Internet-based show unless he got enough subscribers by the end of the year.

Do you have observations for 2017? Plans or predictions for 2018? I always welcome comments. I hope you have a great 2018.

Saturday, December 23, 2017

Well here we are yet again, facing another "holiday season" kicked off by
Thanksgiving, meaning that unmarried men everywhere (in the USA, anyway)
are going to be hounded by family about their marital status.

In past years, I have posted a reminder about the holidays and almost all of it still holds up.
The one change is that I no longer think couples who have children or
are expecting should be encouraged to marry. Our culture, especially our
oh-so-holy Supreme Court, has declared that marriage isn't about
children. It's solely about the feelings of adults at any given moment.
As such, nobody should feel any obligation whatsoever to marry no matter
what the circumstances. (Sorry, folks, if two men can get "married"
then marriage can't be about children. If you thought removing gender
integration from marriage wouldn't have any negative consequences, well,
you were wrong. You can't demand other people live as though it hasn't
changed.)

I wrote an article last
week about a husband’s great need, and right, to be respected by his
wife.

Yeah, good luck with that. Our culture and our laws make that nearly impossible.

But one theme seemed to
emerge from many of the messages I received: a lot women have trouble
respecting their husbands because their husbands spend so much time
watching porn.

Those were probably women who spend all day feeding confirmation bias about how terrible their husbands are.

I
maintain, porn or no porn, that husbands should still be treated with
respect in their homes.

Uh oh!

But that does not justify porn, nor does it
mitigate the impact it has on a marriage. A man who laughs at the very
idea that he may be hurting his wife by watching porn only proves the
point. He has become so intensely self-involved that his wife's needs
are a joke to him. Even when she tells him that she is hurt by it,
still, he blows her off and returns to the naked people on the screen.

Why
does it hurt her? Usually, it is because she's been TOLD it is hurting
her. If she was instead told that she shouldn't be jealous of pixels,
she's probably, in most cases, be just fine.

Monday, December 18, 2017

Today's example of what women like - like so much they will have intercourse with such men, apparently without effective contraception - comes from a recent Dear Abby column:

I
have a 14-year-old daughter I have raised alone. Her father has never
been in her life, nor has he been in the lives of his other children
with other women. He has a long history of criminal behavior and mental
illness.

Note that the guy being described has obviously had sex with many women, women who don't use contraception effectively.

As has happened in some years past, at least as recently as 2014, Tom Leykis,
who evaluates his business goals on a calendar year basis, is warning
his listeners that his live audio call-in show will end at the turn of
the year unless the finances are favorable. Extremely transparent in
comparison to so many other entertainers, he's insisting that unless he
has 1,900 subscribers
by the end of the year (and it is important to note the shows at the
end of the year will be repeats due to the holidays), this version of
his show, which started in early 2012,
will end, with a final live show in early January to say goodbye. And
as Leykis says, his word is his bond. As of this writing, he has nearly
1,800 subscribers. Unless the pace of subscriptions and renewals picks
up, his live shows this year will end without it being clear if the goal
will be met.

If you're not familiar with Leykis' business, you should be. And you should care what happens with it.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Guys,
if you're thinking about proposing as a holiday surprise or just
because you think it is a romantic time of year to propose, DON'T DO IT. If you are thinking about getting married, like many people do on New Year's Even, DON'T DO IT!!! Don't propose on Christmas Eve or Christmas. Don't propose or marry on December 31. Don't do either on Valentine's Day. DO NOT DO IT!!!

Odds are, proposing is/was a mistake. This is a statistical fact.

Consider:

1) 33-40% of first marriages end in divorce. It is well over 50% for second marriages (70% if stepchildren are involved).

2)
Enough of the other marriages are problematic enough of the time that
literally, between divorce and "bad" marriages (including marriages that
effectively end but don't legally divorce, or in which one spouse dies or is killed by the other before divorce could take place) most marriages are a mistake.

3) On top of that, add in the engagements that don't make it to marriage that end with drama and/or bitterness.

UPDATE: I'm bumping this up on June 15, 2012 because today Dr. Laura covered this topic again and asked for comments on Facebook (even though grown men are not supposed to use Facebook, right?) about how playing video games is turning men into pathetic worms. Or something like that. I haven't listened to her commentary on today's show yet. I'll likely have more to say about this soon, based on the comments left on Facebook. -K

UPDATE AGAIN 12/14/2017: Bumping this up again because she again told a caller to toss out her 16 year-old son's video game system (and remove the network entirely from his life). You know what guys that age are likely to do if you do that, given their newfound free time? Knock up girlfriends.

Dr. Laura is back from vacation and the first segment of today's show already got me going. If you click on my Dr. Laura tag you'll see that there's a lot I like about her and her show and I think she does a lot of good. But one of the areas in which I think she's off the mark is "video games". I've written about this before.

I think it was her second call of the day... a wife had called, dragging her husband along, telling Dr. Laura that they have disagreed since they got married (about a year and half ago, if I recall correctly) about the husband playing video games. Dr. Laura did NOT ask the wife if she knew about the guy's game playing when she married him.

Instead, she insisted that the guy needed to choose between the video games and his wife. She repeatedly said that he looks like a "boy", and "adolescent". She would not listen to anything he had to say, nor when his wife tried to interject something. She called it "childish", a "turn-off" and said it didn’t matter what his accomplishments were, that he needed to give up the games.

From there, she went to break and when she came back, she emphasized her point again. Finally, just before she took another call, she threw in a mention that women should not overlook it before marriage and then turn around and make an issue of it once married. (My guess is that she'd advise women not to marry these guys.) I wish she would have drilled the wife on that one. I think it is a rotten thing to do to marry someone and then make an issue out of your spouse's recreational activity.

As I wrote before, I don't play video games. I don't even play those games on social networking sites, or solitaire, or any of the other games found in desktop and handheld computers. But I still fail to see what the big deal is about this. Some people like watching movies. Some people like watching TV shows, including sports. Some people like playing video games. I fail to see why one is worse than the others. I get that Dr. Laura is not into them, but she's wrong on this one.

There are a lot of things, I’m sure, that the husband could cite about his wife's behavior that guys would find a turn-off, even though he married her knowing about them. Dr. Laura had kicked off the show talking about how she had taken time off to go sailing and how much fun it was. There are people who would find that to be silly or childish. But so what? They don't have to go sailing. And Dr. Laura doesn't need to play games, and neither does this guy's wife.

At least people are able to play video games together, and he's right there in the home so that his wife can approach him if she wants to. I hope that guy rewards his wife for dragging him into that trap by picking up a solitary hobby that takes him out of the house or into the garage and away from his wife… so that she begs him to go back to playing video games.

I personally know two grown men who are game designers, and they are mature and make a good living. It's honest work. And they target their games to adults - not with "adult" content, mind you, but they do not talk down to children. I hadn't even thought about them, though, when I started writing this. I was simply thinking about players.

Don't like your husband playing games? Go watch a musical, or scrapbook, or whatever.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Dr. Laura has pissed off a lot of people. Here's a list that I do not claim to be exhaustive. [TWEAKED
AND EXPANDED August 20, 2013. Updated with #88 and #89 on December 21,
2014, #90 on May 26. 2015. Updated with #91-94 on August 25, 2016, with a
few other slightly expanded. Added 95 and 96 on December 12, 2017 ]

Sunday, December 10, 2017

There are two basic reasons men send unsolicited crotch shots, or "d--- pics".

1)
Exhibitionism has long been a thing. The stereotype used to be of the
guy wearing the hat and coat flashing women in a park. Now it can be
done with a smart phone.

2) Much more
commonly, the "average Joe" (whether he is average down there or not)
does it because he has accepted the ridiculous notion that men and women
are not different.

It's quite simple, really:

Most
heterosexual men would be somewhat aroused by receiving an image of a
woman's genitals, even unsolicited, even if he doesn't know her, even
more so if he had reason to believe it was an image of the woman who is
in contact with him, and she intentionally sent it to him. (We're not
talking about injured or diseased genitals, although a few guys probably
have a fetish that covers that.)

As these guys would want a woman to send a picture of her genitals, they reason that since women and men are pretty much the same except for certain exterior body parts, she's likely to want to see his genitals as much has he wants to see hers.

A
lot of women can't believe men think this is a good way to attract or
arouse women. "Don't these men know the truth?" No, they don't, because
they've been told over and over again that women are just like men,
including when it comes to sex.

But the truth is out there. Extremely, and I mean extremely
rare is the woman who likes getting unsolicited crotch shots from men.
Heck, most women don't want crotch shots from men they're in love with,
and the ones who do are more about liking that they have, according to
the picture, aroused a man they care about.

Guys, she's either disgusted or she's laughing at it, and, often, sharing it with her friends so they can make fun of you.

Men and women ARE different, and it isn't just a matter of socialization. Do you think society has socialized men to want to see the genitals of other men? No, but gay males tend to have the same reaction to unsolicited crotch shots of men as heterosexual males have when it comes to those of women.

Sunday, December 03, 2017

Now, it may technically be true. If you group ALL married men and ALL unmarried men and compare them, the married men may report being happier than the unmarried men.

This doesn't mean that signing a legal contract with the state is what has made a man happy. There are many other possible explanations.

First, though, notice that when you group ALL unmarried men together, you are grouping in divorced men, widowed men, men who want to get married but haven't been able to find/win over the "right" woman (likely because they are financially struggling or ill or have some other condition that might make them unhappy), and generally unhappy men, who are less likely to attract and keep a wife. We need studies that compare intentionally unmarried men to married men. My guess is that intentionally unmarried men would report being as happy or even happier than married men. Also, notice that these are percentages about a population. You'll find individuals who are unmarried but happier than the average husband, and married men who are very unhappy in comparison to the average bachelor. Is there any way to guarantee you'll be in the higher levels of happiness? Not that I know of, but when a man is unmarried he has far more control over his own situation.

Thursday, November 30, 2017

[Bumped up.] Recently I considered what I'm sure I've realized before... that many men who say how great and wonderful marriage is either had no game as bachelors or felt guilt about fornicating. A lot of them are, and always have been, nerds. They couldn't get laid when they were younger, but once some woman figured that she'd better cash in her aging chips and look for "security" and a "good provider" (someone who'd actually be able to pay her way through life) and that she could settle for a nerd because he would have a dependable high salary and probably wouldn't whore around.

Monday, November 27, 2017

There are some simple facts of biology. Men usually produce millions
of viable sperm cells on an ongoing basis. He is able to do so starting
in puberty and lasting most of the rest of his life. Sperm cells can
leave his body while he's asleep. He doesn't have to have an orgasm to
expel sperm cells. New human life takes place inside women. Women get
pregnant, men do not.

There are some basic realities of
current law. Once a woman has possession of a man's sperm cells, he has
lost any control, legally, he has over them.

When a sperm cell leaves a man's body, he loses all control of his own DNA.

Monday, November 20, 2017

Ladies, after listening closely to Dr. Laura for many, many years, I know how to tell if you have are in a committed relationship. Some of you think you're in a committed relationship, but you're really not. I've tried to keep this as simple as possible.

Wednesday, November 08, 2017

Every once in a while, the news will report on the costs of raising a child, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. My guess is that the USDA does these reports not because children are considered livestock, but to justify welfare programs that ensure food producers get taxpayer money and then the government has programs to feed children.

Some marriage-and-family advocates (the people who try to get everyone to marry and pop out babies) scoff at reports that it costs $250,000 (or even up to $400,000) to raise a child.

But those numbers do not surprise me. Children are very expensive.

Of course we're not supposed to talk that way. "Children are a blessing!" and "How can you put a price on a child?"

But that doesn't change the fact that it costs money to raise children.

Here are some official links that explain how the costs of raising a child are determined:

Let's be generous to people who try to minimize the costs of raising a child. We'll assume that you won't need fertility treatments, IVF, to adopt, or anything else of that sort, all of which can be very expensive, as it can be if your child has special needs, and they won't assault other kids, or destroy the property of others, all of which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Let's go over the costs that everyone is going to have when raising a child.

Of course this is not something presented from a Biblical perspective. In the Biblical worldview, married people (uh, that's a man and a woman, for you youngsters who have been robbed of a good understanding of marriage) belong to each other. Sexually rejecting your spouse is denying something they are owed, and is religious grounds for divorce, and used to be legal grounds for divorce, back when you actually needed a reason. Marriages weren't considered valid unless they has been consummated with intercourse.

We can agree that a wife (or woman, since we as a society now want to shame slut-shamers) does not owe anyone sex. However, we should also agree that in the very same sense, no man owes a woman...

love

respect

his seat

his coat

his arm

a dance

a prom

a phone call

protection

help with heavy objects

automotive maintenance and repair

romance

dinner

a movie

a ride

the storefront side of the sidewalk

conversation

attention

flowers

jewelry

sweets

a wedding

a baby

birthday cards

birthday presents

anniversary cards

anniversary presents

Valentine's Day cards

Valentine's Day presents

tax money

Let's make sure we establish that and it will be a wonderful world of men and women not being pleasant towards each other.

Most likely, the woman who posted that spreadsheet her husband had made rarely, if ever, rejected a nice session of fornication with him. Before they married, she represented herself as enjoying sex and wanting to have regular/frequent sex with him. If he was a bad lover or somehow deficient in their relationship in a way that turned her off, why wasn't he alerted? She was able to function just fine then. Now that he has signed a legal contract giving him certain financial obligations to her, she rejects him. Is this just a coincidence?

Many unmarried men, especially ones who are divorced, find that many women seem to be willing and eager to have sex - lots of it - with them, even if they don't spend much (if any) time, money, or effort into romancing them or "setting the mood" or jumping through hoops. This is true even if those women have children, jobs, and maintain their own homes. These women really seem to enjoy the sex, too. Why do so many wives, meaning women who are legally entitled to one man's earnings, have so much less interest in sex? Is this just a coincidence?

Even stupid men eventually follow the rewards.

A strong inculcating of conservative religious notions about sexuality will tell a man that fornication is wrong. However, at some point, more and more men will be willing to be celibate or an occasional fornicator than a rejected husband, because becoming a husband means taking on very serious risks and obligations and if the rewards aren't there, fewer men are going to do it, no matter how much their churches tell them women deserve husbands.

On the personal front, it has been a while since I wrote this series. Things have gotten worse. Mercy sex is now once per week if I am lucky. Two week+ intervals are being imposed more, and that's just part of the problem. Recently we spent a little time with a married couple I admire that we do not get to see that often. I have been friends with them for a long time now, long before I met my wife. The husband was one of my groomsmen. After the visit, they wrote to me with their concerns. Their concerns matched those of my father (who has been telling me to consider divorce) and line up with what our therapist has said to me. All of them urge me to find relaxing, fun time for myself, but I just don't see how I can without further shortchanging my children, who have already been screwed by having the parents they do.

I hope somebody out there is learning important lessons from all of this.

1) It is YOUR responsibility to plan things so that if you have children, they will have their mother* with them. Your choice, remember? With choice comes responsibility. Daycare is almost always voluntary and a bad choice. If you're not cut out to be a mother, don't become one. If you don't have a marriage that allows for you to mother your own children, don't have them.

2) It is not a legitimate role of government to compel employers to provide daycare or maternity leave or any other of these accommodations parents want.

3) Employers should be free to run their businesses as they want. If they want to give mothers paid time off to raise their children, fine, but expecting all employers to offer it is an attitude of entitlement.

As you know if you read this blog, I'm married, and I'm a father, having had children with my wife. I got married because I wanted to, and I have children because I wanted to.*

On yesterday's (Wednesday, November 1, 2017) Dr. Laura Program, which I love, I think it was the first call that she took that had me wanting to scream.

The caller was a man of about 30 years of age, who has a girlfriend who is 29. He's never wanted children. The girlfriend indicated she has wanted children, but was willing to not have children for the right relationship.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

After a long and storied life, Hugh Hefner passed, and everyone seemed to have something to say about him. Those who had mostly negative things to say about him fell into two basic categories: self-proclaimed feminists who are misandrists, and people with a religious conviction that sex and nudity are for monogamous heterosexual marriage and anything that goes against that is some of the worst stuff ever.While some critics puffed up their essays with big words, if you watched closely and read between the lines, what really upset people about Hefner more than anything else was that he and/or his media exposed or glaringly reinforced some truths people didn’t want to admit:1) Men can get sexually aroused strictly from the visual, and static, two-dimensional visuals at that.2) Men want to see women naked more more than woman want to see men naked.3) Men are willing to pay to see women naked.4) Women, even the girl next door, are willing to sell their sexuality for money.5) Men want sex more than women.6) Women are their most visually attractive in their late teens/early 20s.

Hugh Hefner's biggest "crime" was making glamour nudes of the world's most beautiful women accessible to the masses, especially men, even if they were poor, whereas in the past, only the rich could see such women. He catered to the tastes of grown men, without trying to accommodate women and children or let women dictate what men should enjoy. Playboy allowed men to see nude women (albeit only pictorial representations) without having to sign a state marriage contract. These are his real sins in the minds of so many, whether they want to admit it or not. Some of the men speaking out are trying to appease their wives or pastors.Regarding truth number 2, notice that while Playgirl and similar offerings became a thing, their popularity was only a tiny fraction of that of Playboy, and much of that interest came from homosexual men.

The critics, especially the religion-based ones, make it sound like Hefner was one of the worst things that ever happened to the world, because his magazine and associated media had young, beautiful, nude women and because he surrounded himself with young, beautiful women. He did far more damage with some of his political involvements and some of the messages conveyed in text, but people want to focus on the fact that his magazine featured women in their birthday suits.Do the critics really think that if Hugh Hefner never existed, media, and society in general, wouldn’t be like it is today? While critics and fans alike try to paint Hefner as a pioneering pornographer, if he hadn’t done it, someone else would have. He saw a demand and cultural trends, and he capitalized on them.

Below are some of the reactions published online in response to Hefner’s death.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

A new study shows that young males would rather sit on their rears while playing "Grand Theft Auto" than look for long, steady work.

Oh really now?

According to research from economists from Princeton, the University of Rochester and the University of Chicago, non-college educated men are rejecting full-time employment and spending as much as 40 hours a week playing video games.

I'm sure there are some who did this. But how many have been looking hard for work, aren't finding it, and are enjoying a little entertainment with their free time? What are those guys supposed to do? Oh, I know... they're supposed to be lackeys to women.

​The University of Chicago's Erik Hurst, an economist at the Booth School of Business, confirms that happiness, at least for now, has gone up among this group of people.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

The kids.
What genetic problems have our kids inherited, including mental
illness? What did her conditions and the medications do during her
pregnancies? Our kids are not lacking in their appearances and they are
highly intelligent, but I'm bracing for mental illness to be diagnosed
and when their behavior is problematic I wonder if they've been impacted
by medication. My wife could no longer physically control the kids from
an early age so discipline became a problem. Also, the kids literally
watched their mother lose touch with reality and behave in ways that
they'll probably be talking about in therapy for the rest of their
lives.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Dennis Prager again used his "Male-Female Hour" today to advocate people marry, or as I put it, enter into a Mexican Standoff with the state. The way he did this was asking people who'd been together for a while without being married to call, including if they had eventually married and to say whether or not it made a difference. The "funny" thing is he wanted to know if it felt different, he said, but later he dismissed the feelings of people in long term relationships who didn't feel like marrying.

I've previously discussed his rejection of the "I was burned by marriage before" reason for not marrying (again). Very similar to that, he derided the feelings of people who say they don't want to marry because their parents had a bad marriage. He again compared marriage to driving, saying that if your parents had been in a bad car accident, would that mean you'd never drive? Well, for some people, yes! But does he really want to equate marriage with driving?

There's a big difference. People grow up under their parents' marriage. The live in it. They see other people driving all of the time. They don't see the marriages of other people as intimately as they see their marriage of their own parents. Their parents' marriage is the most prominent experience with marriage, by far. It's completely understandable that they don't want to marry if their parents had a horrible marriage.

What if every summer while growing up, the family vacationed for two months in the same vacation home, and the kid hated those two months? How likely would they be to want to go the trouble of buying a similar vacation home in the same neighborhood to live there as an adult? And that's just two months a year. Their parents' marriage was something that had an effect on them every day.

When Prager says he doesn't have any respect for someone who says they don't want to marry because of their parents marriage, I am prompted to give a reply Prager previously found to be lifechanging:

SO WHAT?

So what if you don't respect them? Your respect and five dollars can get them a decent hamburger.

There's another difference between driving and marrying.

Driving gets someone to someplace they want to go. It can help them earn a living, visit their doctor, and do all sorts of practical and enjoyable things.

Especially for a man who is already getting everything he wants from a relationship, marriage gets him nothing. It doesn't take him anywhere he wants to go.

Growing up under a bad marriage can be very damaging to someone. Does Prager deny the impact marriage has on children?

Prager has clearly felt compelled to marry, so much so that he's in his third marriage. And it bothers him that are so many other men who don't feel like they have the same obligation.

Is this a matter of misery loves company? Is this a matter of Prager feeling like men should pay for sex and it isn'r fair that there are men who aren't, or are paying less?

I have been married for 27 years, and I have a few thoughts to share about working through arguments with your loved one.

1.You should listen enough to at least let the other person articulate their issue or point of view.

2.Do not force the other person to listen if they don't want to!

3.Listen to YOURSELF so that you are not ever speaking too loudly, with harshness or even a hints of sarcasm.

4.It doesn't matter who wins - it's how both parties feel afterwards.

Sometimes being a good loser makes you both winners.

The letter is really good right up to the underlined part.

I realize that letter is to be considered by both husbands and wives, but the bulk of these things are directed at husbands. We're told in many ways that we're supposed to simply accept and/or announce that we're wrong even when there hasn't been a logical explanation that even demonstrates the possibility that we are. We're supposed to cater to unjustified or even irrational hostility, demands for apologies, and her claim of control, except where she has inconsistently and temporarily (and often silently) ceded some power back to us.

Saturday, October 07, 2017

That favorite villain of so many, "porn", is implied in recent news reporting to be a culprit in the marriage rate decline. [This post has been bumped up from earlier publication.] See the headline of Paul Bedard's article at The Washington Examiner for one example: Shock study: Marriage rate declines with porn use, threatening economy, societyYes, yes, out of everything that has happened, let's blame pixels.

Pornography is replacing the desire among young men for
marriage, according to a new study that finds males are chasing
“low-cost sexual gratification” on the web over a wife and family.

Once again we see that people think men are supposed to pay a lot of money to have orgasms.

There's so much to be said, and so little time.

1) Are there some men who say, "Hey, who needs marriage when I can watch porn?" There probably are a few - a very few. Let's think about those men for a moment. If a man who would and could otherwise marry is looking at porn as a replacement for marriage, that means the only thing he thinks women bring to marriage is visual/auditory sexual stimulation, or he thinks the other things women bring to marriage do not outweigh his costs for getting and being married. Do you think it would be a good idea for such a man to get married?

2) However, there are other men who use porn because they haven't married (yet). They want the stimulation, they're not getting it from a wife, so they view porn.

3) There are unmarried men who do not view porn, or at least only incidentally view it. Some of these men never want to marry (again).

4) There are married men who view porn. Some of those men are satisfied with their sex life with their wife, some of the wives are happy with their sex life, and in other cases, he's viewing porn because his wife is sexually rejecting.

5) There are men who marry, and marry at the same age they would have with or without porn, who viewed porn all along.6) Men can get sexual gratification without viewing porn and without being married. Whether it is masturbation or a girlfriend, or a shack-up, or a booty call, or a friend-with-benefits, it is very easy for an unmarried man to get sexual gratification these days without viewing porn and with little time, money, emotion, or effort spent.

Tuesday, October 03, 2017

I want to hear a call like this to Dave Ramsey or any conservative and/or business/financial commentator who will answer questions/give advice through call-in show. Dave Ramsey is ideal because he gives financial advice and is popular in conservative religious circles:

I want to know your thoughts about this pending deal because I’m getting cold feet.

I have a friend with whom I’ve had what amounts to a weekend hobby for a few years. We often get together a couple of nights in a week, too. My buddy wants to take it to the next level, though, with papers and everything. He wants to form a partnership and register it with the state.

Although there’s nothing in the written contract that penalizes either of us for working with others, my potential partner expects I will put all of time and resources into the partnership, and said there'd be Hell to pay if I even thought of doing a side project with someone else and the partnership would be over.

With the people who've prepared like we have, who hire a consultant like we have, there's about a 40% failure rate of these ventures. Failure would mean not only would half of the assets go to my partner, but I would have to pay my partner’s attorney fees, and I would be obligated to pay money to my partner based on the length of the partnership; if the partnership had lasted ten years or more, I’d be making payments in perpetuity.

There is the possibility that products would be created within the partnership that could be liabilities and financial drains for 18-25 years; I would be expected to cover those costs, including more than necessary if manage to earn a high income. There is a possibility, but by no means a certainty, that the products will provide me with some nominal income late in my life.

Even though there is an expectation that we would not work outside of the partnership, many people who’ve entered into these agreements have done that anyway, and like I said, there is no penalty for doing so. If my partner incurs a liability with someone else, I would be obligated to pay for it for 18-25 years.

Finally, my partner has indicated that soon into the partnership, I will be the person solely responsible for bringing in revenue; my partner plans to provide intangible contributions, such as encouragement, but would not be penalized at all for not doing so. Even without bringing in any revenue, my partner would still get at least half of the assets in the event the partnership ended.

Do you think this is a good deal for me?

Of course those of you who read this blog know exactly what I'm talking about. From a purely financial perspective, it would be insane to tell someone this is a good partnership to enter.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

[Bumped up from December 2016] I wrote a seven-part series for this blog that ran in February and March of 2010. A lot has happened since then. I have done more reflection, I've had significant life experiences since then, I have learned much more about my wife, and so I thought it would be a good time to revisit what I wrote back then.

We've been having quick, rather vanilla/repetitive/almost clinical,
once-a-week, mostly one-sided sessions for quite a while now, usually
involving her waking me up from a dead sleep (I don't get enough sleep
as it is), though not as creatively as she could. That means we've been doing it 4-5 times a month (and usually not taking her to climax, which I really, really like doing). There's no way we've averaged 9.94 times a month when considering the whole marriage.Verdict: I am currently one of the people who can say I got more sex while unmarried than married.

Geez, I thought I had it bad then. It's been more like once every three weeks now, although my wife has just agreed to try to get it up to three times per week. The problem is, after everything that's happened and the things she's said repeatedly, including recently, and done, it is difficult for me to be turned on to her. Sex is a burden and chore for her and she deliberately avoids orgasms except for rare times. Yes, I'm still physically attracted to her and want to enjoy her body and treat her well, but treating her well seems to be leaving her alone, and emotionally it's a mess. Like just about every other plan to which she agrees, the plan to at least make out more often will probably be dropped quickly.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

So you've either been woken out of your stupor or the slow-building discontent has finally become too intense, and you're ready to get out of your relationship with a single mother or a childless shack up. Being with a single mother* or living with a woman brings all sorts of complications and risks. So depending on how deep you're in, there are going to be different considerations.

Men who are NOT in such relationships should read this, too, to be
informed about just how much trouble being in, and getting out of, such relationships can be,
so they'll be motivated to avoid them.

How deep are you in?

If you married this woman (which would mean she's not a single mother anymore) and made a baby or babies with her, that's the worst of all scenarios, especially if you have adopted her children. Unless she is abusing you or the kids, the the best thing for the children is usually to stay put and be polite and as pleasant as possible until the youngest child is 18. The problem with that, is, in some places, like the state I live in, being married for ten years or "close enough" means you'll be paying lifetime alimony to her. The bulk of this entry is addressed to guys who haven't married the woman and haven't legally adopted her children.

You need an exit plan for your own self-preservation. If she or anyone else accuses you of not being a "real man" or that you're somehow lesser because you don't want to put up with mistreatment or someone else's responsibilities any more, just let it roll off your back. Who cares what they say? This is what they're saying, when you get right down to it. "You should spend your time, money, and energy doing things for me/her so I/she can spend more of my/her own time, money, and energy on my/herself." She might cite things she does for you, and even if she does do those things, it doesn't matter. You're not obligated to stay with her, and you can either get by without those things or get them for a lot less money, time, and effort, or with someone who is more compatible with you and brings fewer negatives to the situation. You may have some emotional discomfort over the breakup, but that would fall entirely in the realm of normal, because the relationship became familiar to you and part of your routine. The discomfort will go away and it is better in the long run to be out of that relationship.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

He's still just a little kid, though, so it could still be the childhood "girls are yucky" sort of thing, or it could be more serious, such as seeing what my life is like as a husband. I try to put on a good face, but he is more than smart enough to observe the fact that I have to go work as much as I do and yet we have to watch our spending and that I spend much of my time at home being my wife's butler.

I know what I'm supposed to teach my son, according to the
standard operation procedure of the subculture to which I belong: Stay
"pure", go to college and/or the military, get a career, get married and
make babies, and stay married at least until those babies are all grown, all while regularly attending church and giving "ten
percent" and more to the church, in addition to time and effort serving in some capacity. And he should do this so... his sons can do the same thing, and their sons can do the same thing.

However, I can't, in conscience, encourage a son of mine to enter into what our laws and culture now call marriage.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

The latest tactic (or, at least, the latest that I've noticed) of "anti-porn" activists is claiming it is a "public health crisis" and seeking to have it declared as such by governments. Doing things like this might rile up the people who already agree with them, but it makes them look extremely foolish and lessens their credibility. It's also feeds a problematic trend, as David Boaz of the Cato Institutepoints out so well here.

Tactics matter. The tactics used to get what you want can also be used by others to get what they want. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Hmm, here have I heard that expression before?

Boaz leads off with what prompted him to write:

A Republican National Convention platform committee has declared
pornography “a public health crisis.” Committee members don’t seem to
know what “public health” means.

Lately it’s been liberal Democrats who have applied the “public
health” label to everything they don’t like — smoking, obesity, venereal
disease, motorcycle accidents, and more. They see “public health” as a
blank check for government action.

Exactly. By claiming it is a "public health crisis" the people who pushed for this to be in the party platform are hoping they can make this an exception to the desired for smaller government. Here's the danger to the party: Millions of people view porn and then don't perceive there to be any problem as a result, so when a party platform calls it a public health crisis, they think the party leaders are being stupid.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

As I’ve written many times before, I’m a big fan of Dr. Laura and agree with most of what she says.

One thing I appreciate is that she tends not to buy into the hysteria regarding “adult media” that so many other conservative, “marriage-and-family” advocates have. Primarily, that means when a wife calls, upset that her husband likes looking at pixels depicting nude women or even women in sexual situations, Dr. Laura usually tells the caller to get over it as long as it is depicting human adults, isn’t gay male material, isn’t something like BDSM or some other fetish, and the husband isn’t neglecting his obligations (such as rejecting his wife to go and masturbate to porn).

On yesterday’s (September 11, 2017) show, the first or one of the first calls was from a woman who found out that her husband was looking at “teen porn”. Unfortunately, despite the fact that 18 and 19-year-olds are teens, and many people older than that pretend to be teens in mainstream media as well as adult, Dr. Laura immediately condemned the husband, raised the subject of “kiddie” stuff and told the woman to leave her husband and take the husband’s computer to have it checked by police. When the caller pointed out that 18 and 19-year-olds are teens, Dr. Laura said that a year or two doesn’t make a difference.

When Dr. Laura tells wives to get over the fact that their husband views adult media, what exactly does she think most of that media depicting “women, women with men” features? In most cases, it isn’t women the same age as the husband or the wife. Most of those women in general adult media (as opposed to “granny” or “MILF” stuff) are under 30 years of age, many of them 18-25. Playboy has always featured women who were as young as 18 and 19 (and, the fact is, at least once they had a female under the age of 18).

Your average regulation heterosexual man is going to find women under the age of 25 to be most attractive. I’m talking about from a purely visual, casual perspective. Of course he’s going to find the woman he loves and who loves him to be highly attractive. And truth be told, if most women had to rate men solely on the performance of their penises, most would prefer guys under the age of 25. It’s simple biology.

In other words, Dr. Laura might have told a woman to leave her husband, the father of her child, and invite police to search his computer over the kind of stuff that can be found in Playboy.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

It's been almost ten years since I published what is below the fold. It still stands up.

You're not going to find a better talk show host than Tom Leykis when the topics are the radio and television industries. He's also brilliant when it comes to personal finance and money management, entrepreneurship, motivation, and how to avoid marriage, avoid relationships, and how a man can "get more tail for less money".

One of the areas he falls short in, however, is when he blasts Christianity or a general belief in God. He's a lifelong atheist. But there are atheists out there far more knowledgeable and willing to debate much more seriously than Leykis. So when he tries to goad people to call up and argue with him about God, it isn't surprising that it doesn't "work". He tried having a semi-regular segment to his show called Ask the Atheist, but he dropped it for lack of calls (his audience is different now that his show is streamed online rather than on terrestrial broadcast radio), and today he tried (and failed) to do an unofficial Ask the Atheist hour by saying Hurricane Harvey is proof there is no God. There are many, many, many, many, manyserious essays on natural disasters/suffering and the existence of God that Leykis could critique during his show, or he could have a Christian apologist on his show if he was really interested in a serious discussion. Instead, he's inviting his listeners to call in, most whom are primarily interested in how to fornicate with as little trouble as possible. If anyone does try to take the position of Theism or even Deism, Leykis resorts to the tactic of essentially repeating "Sez who?!? and "Not so!!!" and all sorts of sleight of word, redirection, etc. Most of what he does is to provide an entertaining show, but this appears to be an attempt at an ego boost or confirmation bias. Whatever the case, he isn't open to serious discussion on the topic. If he was, it might actually be a more successful segment to the show.

We're not prepared. We're not prepared for the sacrifices, for the
compromises, for the unconditional love.

A lot of people aren't prepared. But some people are unwilling to make the sacrifices, the compromises, and to put in all of the effort, because they do not see the potential benefits to be worth it. In many cases, they are right.

Unconditional love is an interesting term. Most people don't really mean it when they use it, and some people who do are being foolish. For example, a woman who "loves" her husband after her rapes her child and remains unrepentant is sick.

We're not ready to invest all
that it takes to make a relationship work.

Right, a lot of people aren't, and one reason is that there is no assurance it will actually work. Someone can choose wisely, treat kindly, and still get screwed over because the other person can suffer, for example, a brain trauma that changes their attitude and moods.

We want everything easy.

A lot of people do. Other people are willing to work hard, but for many men, there is no benefit to work hard for a relationship with a woman, especially not a marriage. For these men, it isn't that they want things easy; they don't want them unnecessarily and unreasonably difficult or disadvantageous.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Dr. Laura recently
had a call of the day that was about a married couple not having sex.
The caller was the wife and she wanted to know what to do. Her show's Facebook page linked to it, and many very revealing comments were left there.

Jamie's husband works all day and when he comes home, he is too tired for sex. What can Jamie do to bring the spark back?

Brandon Jerel Williams, 27, was sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison after he was found guilty of first-degree murder, torture and assault on a child causing death, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

His 23-year-old girlfriend, Rosie Lee Wilson, was convicted of second-degree murder and child abuse and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Prosecutors said the fatal beating occurred Aug. 21, 2014, when Wilson left her son with Williams, her live-in boyfriend.

Some guy thought it was a good idea to stick it in Wilson and impregnate her. Good job there, buddy. Now, the question is, does he even know he got her pregnant? Did he care? Did he fight for custody? Since he's not even mentioned in the article, my guess is that he's completely out of the picture. But, it is the Los Angeles Times so that might not be so.

One of the "crazy" things Dr. Laura tells people on her show as often as she can is that they should not bring their new lovers around their minor kids. People think that's ridiculous advice, but stories like this are Exhibit A as to why I agree with her. Children are far more likely to be abused by their parent's new lover.

When you read on, it becomes clear this "mother" was choosing her new gina tingles by a bad boy over her own child.

Dr. Laura has repeatedly told male callers to her show (either directly or through their wife calling) that it doesn't matter if they hate their job, they need to (financially) provide for their family and not be concerned with following some dream.

During yesterday's show (August 21, 2017) during the third hour, she got a call from a woman who has been a SAHM, formerly a dental assistant, who was going back to work due to her kids aging out, but as a preschool (= daycare, which Dr. Laura usually rails against) teacher. The woman prefers doing the preschool work, but the dental assistant work, which she could get, pays far more, and her husband wanted her to take that work instead of the preschool work, to facilitate saving for retirement.

Now, Dr. Laura has declared she'll never retire and she says she can't understand people who retire "early" (despite telling men to do jobs they hate), so that might have played into her answer. Most people do want to retire, though.

Dr. Laura specifically told this woman to follow her dream and do the preschool work, and to tell her husband she's going to budget to save money. She tells wives these things (like when she tells a wife to tell her husband she'll feel sexier if she can quit her job), but I wonder how many actually follow through and budget, and are more frequent/enthusiastic lovers? My guess is many don't. There may not be all that much they can do to save more money, or maybe the husband doesn't want to cut back on their current lifestyle? In this case, the kids were off the college so that was probably going to be a big financial strain.

Dr. Laura further said that she doesn't know what has happened to today's males, who are, in her estimation, telling women to "go be a slave, forget about your dreams and earn income". This is very revealing. Are husbands slaves? Anyone clued in to MGTOW would say yes. I'm right there with Dr. Laura when the kids are young and there needs to be a parent with them. One parent (usually the husband) needs to earn income and the other (usually the wife) needs to be primarily concerned with caretaking of the children. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about empty-nesters.

What has happened to today's males? Here's what has happened: It costs more to live longer. Husbands know career disruption is a big thing now and they can't count on having their job until retirement. Also, there are an awful lot of wives out there who decided to leave their marriages, and if they are earning nothing or significantly less than their husbands (as most wives do), they are getting alimony payments, and depending on the state, for the rest of their lives!

The caller's husband is trying to secure their joint future. If they're going to need care, that's going to cost. If they're going to want to travel, that's not cheap. If they're going to be paying for their kids' education and weddings, that can easily total hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So... do the dreams of men matter?

We're not talking about the needs of children. That's out of the picture at this point. Now it becomes a question of whose dreams matter more. His dreams appear to be centered on the two of them together. Her dreams are about what she's doing with her day.

If is important to note that Dr. Laura frequently refers to a man marrying as a man "laying down his life".

Men: Want to pursue your dreams? Want to live your life instead of laying it down? DON'T MARRY. When you marry, it becomes all about her. And if you have children it is all about them. So don't do those things. Now, Dr. Laura and others might accuse you of being selfish or immature or "afraid of commitment" or some other negative label. So what? You can console yourself with all of your freedom and financial security and enjoying your dreams and NOT dealing with nagging and hostility from the person who is sharing your home. That way, the woman you would have married can work whatever job she wants to. She won't have to deal with your request she be a "slave" like you have been.

Monday, August 21, 2017

You might think you do for any number or combination of reasons (you can skip these reasons and go down to how you can have a great life without a wife if you'd like):

1) You're stuck in some mindset that's based on a bygone (if it ever really existed) era. In this mindset, "everyone" gets married, it's shameful or sad if you don't, and husband and wife work as a team with a tidy division of labor, with the wife providing her husband with admiration, respect, support, sex, children, and a "made" home, and the husband providing for the wife income and certain domestic labor, protection, and muscle in raising the children.* You grow old together. Very few marriages are like this anymore. Most women are not prepared to be that kind of wife, and guys don't need to marry to get what they want. The culture in general has changed, more and more people are living more and more of their life outside of marriage, and there's a good chance she'll divorce you no matter what you do.

2) You were socialized to think you did. Whether it was and is your parents, your peers, a religious organization in which you were raised, or the media (especially with the highly unrealistic romcoms), you were told by others that you're supposed to have a wife. But this is your decision to make, and you are the one who will live with the consequences.

3) You don't have your act together and you think a wife will make up for your shortcomings. Even if she seems to like taking care of things for you now, there's hardly any woman who really, sincerely, wants to be your Mommy and the resentment and backlash will wreak havoc sometime after you sign on that dotted line. You can get your act together and take care of your stuff without being married. See How To Do It below.

4) A woman you're having sex with wants you to marry her. Whether she's your "girlfriend" or "significant other" or "partner" or whatever, she indicates she wants to get married. Of course she does! Getting married has guaranteed benefits for her. But it's a bad deal for you. Don't let her decide what your life is going to be like. If you're just seeing her, the only thing she controls is whether or not she's going to have sex with you. If she moves in, she controls much more of your life, and if you marry her, she'll be almost entirely in control of your life. DO NOT LET HER MOVE IN, not even by stealth. Once she does, she'll be hinting, suggesting, or outright nagging about getting married, trying to tell you that you might as well get married, or getting married will make things netter. She shouldn't even know where your place is, but if you have her over she should never be allowed to spend the night, receive mail or shipments there, leave things there, etc.

5) A woman you're spending a lot of time with wants you to marry her. See immediately above. You can find friendship and companionship with others, without signing a legal contract that is nothing but trouble for you.

6) You think you need a wife for sex. You can get all the sex you want without being married. Being married actually makes it less likely you'll get all of the sex you want. UNLESS... you live by a moral code that sex is for marriage. And if that's the case, you're not having sex already, right? Right? If you want to START living by that moral code, any woman you're having sex with now isn't the right woman to do that with. If you already are living by that code, think long and hard if wanting sex is worth getting married, keeping in mind that the sex could be bad and could be ended entirely, even if you do "everything" right.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Among the various health issues my wife deals with is mental illness. I'm aware that mental illness can range from controlled and relatively mild to completely debilitating. It can also range from "everything is fine right now" to "I'm going to try to kill myself". One of the problems is, there isn't always a way to know when things have shifted until the person is dead or you have to act to prevent them from killing themselves.

Recently my wife and I had a disagreement, and in my frustration, when the children weren't there to hear, I yelled about how I think one of the kids is getting unfairly neglected.

Whenever I yell, everything is diverted. We're no longer going to address what the disagreement is, it is going to be about how terrible I am for yelling. My wife and one of our kids are both extremely good at diverting, although they usually use different tactics. My wife's blanket defense is usually invisible health problems. Yes, she has real health problems. That I can't see how they are limiting her at the moment makes it harder for me to best handle situations. She can cite these problems whether or not they are actually interfering at the moment.

Between her health problems and focusing on my tone or volume of voice, she's always able to avoid changing her behavior. It is always about how I need to change my behavior. So, I end up being worse off having communicated my disagreement or desire, and it is better for me not to have said anything at all. I've been a slow learner when it comes to this.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Over and over again, men are told that marriage is good for men (by people who should admit they have ulterior motives). I maintain that
more often than not, it is NOT good for a breadwinning man who has his act
together. Most marriages are failures. While individual wives, through their
voluntary decisions, can make a man’s life better, that is a minority and is despite,
not because of, the general culture as well as family laws and courts; she can
do these things without a state marriage license. Plus, you can’t be sure she
actually will be net positive in a man’s life until everything has been said
and done, but that man can tell if he’s living a miserable life at any given
moment.Recently I considered my own situation.Am I better off because I’m married?

Tuesday, August 08, 2017

Quite often, Townhall.com has some great content spanning "conservative" viewpoints from center-right to libertarian to whatever. Recently, they ran another column lamenting that men don't want to emasculate themselves by marrying. That's not how they put it, but that's basically what it amounts to. This time Jerry Newcombe wrote the piece:

I attended an unusual wedding this past weekend.

You attended a party. What you usually don't see are the pointless and not-so-pointless arguments and all of the bad things that result from a man and woman living together in a Mexican standoff with the state.

Ben Steverman notes in the Drudge-linked article: “The U.S.
marriage rate—the number of new marriages per 1,000 people—has been
falling for decades….And research firm IbisWorld predicts the marriage
rate will keep falling over the next five years.”

Although I wish this was mostly from men refusing to sacrifice themselves on the altar of ungrateful narcissistic gynocentrism, most of it is likely a mere delay. People are getting married later because... they can and they should (if they're going to marry at all). People who are busy trying to get a college degree and/or trying to establish themselves in a career aren't in a good place to be a good spouse.

He adds, “It’s
unclear whether the decline of the American wedding is a permanent
trend. American millennials lag previous generations on many metrics of
adulthood…Maybe most of them will eventually get around to weddings of
their own—but then, it’s possible that many never will, and that they’ll
bring the U.S. marriage rate closer to Europe’s.”

It would be
disastrous for this country if we went the route of Europe in being a
post-marriage society. The old cliché is still true: As the family goes,
so goes society.

Even if I agree, I can't encourage men to enter into such a raw deal. Want more men to marry? Work to stop punishing husbands in law, courts, and culture. Raise women who will be the kind of women who will attract and keep a husband.

What’s happened to marriage in America?

We took away incentives for men to marry, and added risks and obligations to husbands. Men have been slow to catch on, but more and more are.

Hollywood has turned monogamy into monotony.

It wasn't Hollywood that did that. Women who are trying to get a man to sign on the dotted line are often quite different sexually than a woman who has a man trapped.

The
irony is that surveys show that those who are married tend to enjoy
everything on a much more fulfilling basis. And that includes intimacy.

The surveys are flawed. If a survey doesn't distinguish intentionally unmarried men from the rest of unmarried people, and compare them against married men, it is worthless survey. It's also worthless if there wasn't at least some confidence in being anonymous.

Let's deal with a couple of facts. When you combine: ...marriages that divorce...marriages that don't legally divorce but more or less end before death with emotional, physical and/or legal separation ...marriages that end with suicide or murder-suicide...marriages that have significant periods of misery related to or based on these two people being legally/socially tied together and/or living together

“Living
in sin” (as cohabiting used to be called) has lost its stigma—but most
such couples don’t seem to realize that, statistically, living in sin
prepares you for divorce more than it does for a happy marriage.

Yes, but why is that? I used to blindly buy into the idea that they had doomed their marriage by shacking up, and I maintain that shacking up is a a terrible idea (almost as bad as legally marrying). But the reality of the situation isn't so simple. Among the reasons is that some people who shack up should never have married in the first place, but they do because they're already living together. They marry because they think it will fix things, because we keep saying that marriage is some sort of magic tonic, or the woman is told that if the relationship doesn't end in marriage, she's been "used" or "wasted her time" even though she was getting something out of the relationship the entire time. It is also likely that the kind of people who shack up are more willing to leave a bad marriage than spend the rest of their lives being miserable in it. There are other reasons, but the one that fits with what this guy and others like him are saying is that, in some cases, people establish patterns in shacking up as unmarried individuals that carry over into the marriage, where they are supposed to be united, to the detriment of the marriage.

Although
millions profess Christian belief, too many compartmentalize their
lives and fail to live by Christian standards, i.e., no sex outside of
traditional marriage.

I really have to wonder where exactly this comes from. What, precisely, does he mean by sex? Words or phrases translated "sexual immorality" in our English Bibles are not clear enough, obviously, because some people say it includes making kissing off-limits. Intercourse was more of a problem before there was contraception and before there were DNA tests. The Old Testament seems to be focused on intercourse. I know what churches have taught, but how much of it is explicitly taught in the Bible? I'm not arguing that PIV is the only thing the Bible teaches against or that everything else is OK. Clearly, giving each other orgasms causes people (especially women) to bond, and that is problematic if you shouldn't be with the person to whom you're bonding. But I really don't think the Bible is as clear as so many of my fellow religious conservatives would think.

Government tax policies, especially in the
example of welfare, have subsidized single parenthood, thus, breaking
the back of the urban family.

Yeah, that should be stopped.

Instead of actually helping the poor,
welfare has ensured their long-lasting misery—because the family is the
key to upward mobility.

Not for men. Really. In today's employment market, men need to be able to work long and odd hours, extra days, move, jump from one employer to the next, go on business trips, and network in mixed company unencumbered by a wife and kids who require stability and limiting interaction with women who are now ubiquitous in every strata of the workplace. A man who doesn't have a wife and kids to support can save, insure, and invest in a way that will increase his wealth far more than his married-with-kids counterpart.

Traditional marriage is good for individuals all the way
around. Numerous studies show it’s good for your spiritual health, your
mental health, your physical health, and your fiscal health.

Again, those studies are flawed. Personally, I attended and focused effectively in church services and Bible studies far more often as an unmarried, child-free man. I did personal Bible study far more, too. Now, I'm busy being a butler, medical advocate, and prison warden.

Many today think marriage is unnecessary.

It is. Someone can have a fulfilling and full life a productive, independent adult. Most of us aren't living on isolated farms anymore.

They think marriage is misery, and singleness is bliss.

It certainly can be. In singleness, someone has far more control over their life.

Perhaps
one of the biggest myths of all about marriage is that feelings are all
that matter.

The couple wed in the cow patch said a
mixture of traditional vows along with some interesting twists...

And how many of the people attending had always made vows to love, honor, and cherish until death, but haven't???
Let women and bicycle-less fish enjoy themselves. Don't marry them, guys. Take care of yourself, become independent and secure, and find worthy causes for your time and money. Don't tie yourself to an irrational creature with the imposition of the state into your relationship.

Welcome!

Warning: I am frank and blunt about my past, my current musings and sins, how the male mind works, and married sexuality - right or wrong.

Feel free to comment on my blog entries. I have chosen to require my approval on comments for two reasons: 1) To prevent libel and 2) To allow you to write me privately - which means if you DON'T want your comment published, say so in your comment. If you disagree with me, that won't keep me from publishing your comment. Differences of opinion are most welcome!

Also, I may or may not agree with the content found on my links. So don't blame me for what others are writing and saying.